Take Root Conference on Reproductive Justice Set Feb. 23-24

Registration is now open for the 2018 Take Root: Red State Perspectives on Reproductive Justice Conference, to be presented Feb. 23 and 24 by the WGS Center for Social Justice at the University of Oklahoma.

The conference, slated Feb. 23 and 24, will include an opening plenary, networking reception, and over 40 breakout sessions in the Thurman J. White Forum Building, 1704 Asp Ave., in Norman. Student registration is $25; early-bird non-student registration is $60. Register here now. Scholarship applications are also available. More information about this year's program can be found at take-root.org.

Rev. T. Sheri Dickerson, executive director of Black Lives Matter Oklahoma and president of the OKC BLM chapter, will be the featured keynote speaker. Dickerson serves on several civic and community advocacy boards of directors including the OKC MLK Coalition, OKC PRIDE, The Diversity Center of OK, the Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice, the OKC chapter of NOW, and the National Association of Black Social Workers. She's a certified holistic Doula and midwife, and part of the collaborative Birth Workers for Women of Color.

The Take Root Conference provides a space for engagement on reproductive justice for students, academics, practitioners, advocates, and community members. The region’s unique cultures and concerns shape our focus on and approach toward achieving reproductive justice. The conference offers an opportunity to explore that perspective and engage with new possibilities. Take Root also works toward highlighting the relevance of the red state regional perspective in national reproductive justice discourse to bridge existing gaps.

The 8th annual conference will also include a poster session. Poster proposals indicate the individual or group whose work is organized in a visual format suitable for the poster session. The deadline forposter proposal submissionsis Jan. 26, 2018. Presenters are expected to be in attendance to discuss their projects for the duration of the poster session. Please indicate the top two related themes that correlate to your intended presented work.

If you would like to participate in the conference in other ways – by framing and moderating a panel; facilitating a caucus space; sharing arts, performance, or media-making skills; or blogging about the conference, please let us know! We want to hear about the community-building skills you have to share!

Take Root is sponsored by the WGS Center for Social Justice, an initiative of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program to promote gender justice, equality, tolerance, and human rights through local and global engagement. As a discipline, Women's and Gender Studies critically examines how institutions and social organizations that seem natural are often structured to hide and perpetuate gender, class, and racial inequality. The Center adopts this feminist perspective, recognizing that while questions of social justice concern all human beings, women and children are harmed disproportionally when it comes to the allocation of political power and economic resources.